For You
by shadowkat678
Summary: In Severus Snape's last moments he remembers who it was all for... In Canon. I just want to say that I worked really hard on this one (Edited for a week, a WEEK!) and flamers be warned. I am armed with jumbo marshmallows. Feedback (and criticism) on my writing is, as always, met with a cookie and smile! Made for The Star Challenge. :]


**~For you~**

**By: shadowkat678**

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**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything this Potterhead geek would want to own in the Harry Potter universe. All I claim is this fic, my profile, and my highly over active imagination that keeps me up at night playing out stories. **

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I'm dying, and even as I feel my own warm blood pooling out underneath me, I wonder. I wonder about you, and I wonder how different it could have been.

Even as the snake's fangs tear deep into my side, I remember. I remember you and what you did for that young friendless boy so long ago. If I'd only listened to you how would things have changed from how they are now?

I remember that little girl I first saw opening the flower bud cupped in her hands and I remember wishing I could only have half of what she did. Wishing for the happiness, wishing for the love, and wishing for the way that you were loved.

Can you hear me now? Have I finally done something right? Have I finally done something worth dying for, something as you had that Halloween night so many years ago?

Even as I fade away I still see your face, like a picture burned in my mind. I see your eyes, eyes that saw within me things no one else had ever seen before and more than any living person has seen since. For better or for worse you always saw them, the dreams and the demons both. I can see the smile that you always wore, and how it made me feel things I'd never felt and have failed to ever since. I see that fiery red hair framing your face that was only matched by your fiery temper forever bubbling under the surface. It was the hair you were known for, and it was one of the things I always loved about you. I remember how it fell softly down your back, how it flew behind you when you ran, and how it spread around your face like a pool of dark crimson blood the night I found you lying cold and still on the floor.

Do you know? Do you know about all those times I laid awake selfishly wishing it had been him instead of you? Do you know all the sleepless nights I wished I could take back that one word that tore us apart? Do you see the anger, the regret, and the sadness I've never shown to anyone else, and that few, if none, ever saw? Did you see all the things I hid behind that mask, the physical mask as well as the mask of my mind? Yes, you could always see it. Sometimes I thought you even knew me even better then I did myself.

I hear him talking, but I can't make out his words. Instead, I imagine it's your voice. I imagine the days I poured out every fear, every hated moment I endured in that forsaken house down on Spinner's End. I told you of the pain, the memories, and the dreams I held to escape from it. You never tried to give me the fake assurances anyone else would have. No, you just sat there and listened, and for that I thank you. You always listened, and you were always there. You were the only one, always the only one, and still are the only one. The only one who ever did that for me, the only one who listened, and the only one who ever really cared.

It hurts to breathe, but still I cling to life, to my memories of you. Do you know of the way I see you in those emerald eyes of his? He has the exact same spark, the same rock-hard stubbornness, and the same fiery strength and unmovable determination I always admired so much in you. Do you know how much it hurts, how much it pains me to see it, and how I remember it all over again every time I meet that matching pair of shining green eyes? He looks so much like him in everything else, but the eyes and spirit are yours. Merlin, they're so much like yours.

I hear the footsteps fading away, and I remember walking with you down to the brook, and how we'd always meet under the cool shade of the trees. I remember the brightly colored flowers lining the muddy bank in the spring time, and how you always brought some home with you for your mother. I remember how we lay there, watching the clouds drifting lazily above us while forgetting all the problems we had outside that one special place, and how being there with you brought a peace in me I've never felt on my own. Maybe that's why I'm always alone now, because I don't want to feel it again. Not with anyone except for with you.

When they talk about the last moments of life, and how everything that's ever happened flashes before your eyes, is this what they mean? I can see everything now. Every regret I've ever made, everything I've done, and all the pain I've caused...I can see the day we were sorted, and I can still feel the hollowness left inside of me after it was over. I remember how you stood up for me all those years even when no one else would, and most of all I can remember how I repaid you for it in the end.

I'm sorry. Do you know how sorry I am? Do you know the regret I dealt with whenever I felt that burning on my arm or saw that mark branded like a dark stain into my skin? Do you know how I held on to your cold lifeless body for half an hour in my arms when I saw you, and the feeling like led in the pit of my stomach knowing that in the end it was all my fault? Do you know much I hurt seeing those once bright almond-shaped eyes so dull and far away, knowing you were gone, gone somewhere I could never go? Because even now, though I'm dying, I can never go there, and I don't deserve to go there. I don't deserve to be with you. I never deserved you.

He's gone now, but still I think of you. Do you know of all those times I went to visit your grave? Did you see all the times I stood there for hours on end wishing you were standing beside me instead of lying there under the cold hard ground? Did you see me there, just a few months before this day, as the single small Lily that I had so carefully placed below that marble headstone was slowly covered with the falling snow? It was white. It was pure white. That day was the first time in years I let go of the mask, the first time I let a crack form across its surface outside the safe solitude of my own room.

He's here now, your son. But it's too late, because nothing can save me. Not now. There is something I can give him though. I can give just one last small thing. After all I've done it's the least I can do. He needs to know the truth, and so I'll give him the one thing I've never voluntarily let any but you glimpse.

When I was offered redemption by Dumbledore I never imagined what it would bring, but if I was given the choice again I'd still take it. I'd take it for you, and for your son. I gave him my memories and now he'll know the truth, and he'll know more of you. More of the woman he should have grown up knowing, and never got the chance to because of me.

In him I see so much of you. He's grown into someone I could never dream of being. The young eleven year old boy I saw seven years ago at the sorting has grown into a man that holds the world on his shoulders and still keeps his head held high. You should be proud of the man he's become, and you should know that if anyone can stop him he can.

My time is up now, but there is no light I can see, only the infinite darkness stretching out before me. But one more time, before I go, I need to see them. I need to see the eyes. I need to see your eyes, because only then I can accept what is been so long in coming.

If you can see me now with those bright green eyes of yours, even as I take my final breath, I hope you know it was for you, all of this was for you. Everything I've done, every right and every wrong I've tried to justify to myself in your name, everything has always been for you. It's all been for that little girl who made me feel alive like I never felt before, and for that young woman, the woman that drifted away all because of my own foolish mistakes.

Now I see those eyes for the final time, and I'm ready. But before I go there is something you need to know. Before the darkness comes to take me away at last there is one thing left to tell you. You need to know that it was all for you.

Lily, you need to know that it was always for you…

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**A/N: Why must I always write things that make me cry? I really need to stop writing things that make me cry! I mean, first it was A Christmas In Azkaban with Sirius and now this with Snape, I mean why am I doing it to myself! Ugh, so sad!**

**Oh, and comment please! They make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! Trust me, I need that after this. :3**

**By the way, for everyone waiting for the next chapter of my other stories, I'm really sorry but I think I may have to put them all on hold. Whenever I try to get out something to update, all I get are these one-shots! I hope I'll update soon, but if not be patient. Besides, that's why you fallow the story or (better yet) me! Again (shamelessly repeating) review! Or fav, favs are good as well.**


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